memoriesMy hands are shaking. I shouldn't be this nervous, it's nothing new, meeting a man. But I am, and very much so. I fill hot water to the top edge of the tub, scalding myself as I get in, hearing the water make a back door escape down the overflow pipe, without me. All the way under I go, holding my nose like a thirteen-year-old, slowly exhaling my breath. It's quiet like a cemetery down here. So this is what a glass coffin feels like. I feel like I've died. I do want to die, I want the old part of me to die. To exhale the part that is afraid, that metes out her male affections like favors after a party, the part that keeps a stable of men by her side for "emergencies", and any other awful part of me that he doesn't deserve. My lungs, flat as pancake, tell me I've done enough dying for one day. Steaming and rebooted, I rise and begin a familiar anointing routine made altogether new as I feel you draw near.

* * * *

I'm late as usual. I will be late for my own funeral. Downstairs at the bar, you call up to the room. I've never heard your voice so near. It's as if you are standing right next to me. I hang up the phone, looking at it like it's a living thing. I didn't know until later that you had sent me a message while I was on my way down. Only two words: "come here".

There's a scene I will carry with me always. An image I've already played out in my mind a thousand times: a smoky red bar, a far corner table, and you: standing, putting out your cigarette with your thumb and second finger, smiling at me. Both of us, perfectly groomed. But my manners lie: I am roiling and broiling on the inside because I know what lies underneath your blazer.

* * * *

Sometimes life never lives up to our expectations. But what do you do when She gives you more than you wanted? Schooled on Greek tragedies, most of us turn away: life can be so cruel. Worse to not get what you wanted, than get it and have it taken away from you or, worse yet, find out you were wrong all along. This has nothing to do with being afraid of dying, but being afraid of living. Of Failure, or Love Lost.

* * * *

Behind closed doors, after our respectable walk, I understand why you insisted we return so soon. This kind of love is not meant for others to see. It's a ripe strawberry collapsing in my mouth. It's the smell of you, of me, and of this: an oceanic wave that starts in your eyes, moves through your body and then down under the sheets until they are pushed off, taking whatever clothes or fears we have left along with them, like the tide. Stretched out, held, and pounded, I stared at you for hours in wonderment, not knowing if perhaps I actually had drowned earlier and maybe this was what was to come, or what was becoming. I am still here, in this dream. There were others who conspired to help us, those people who kept us fed and hydrated, moving in and about the shadows with pens and tablets, breakfast carts topped with confections, butter, and syrup, newspapers telling of some other world outside those walls. There were cab drivers who would pull up when we needed them. And people from all walks of life in our theater when we opted to play outside. There was history for tourists, while we were history in the making. Waterfalls and photographers, solemnity and swimming holes, and movie houses with hysterical love dramas that we giggled and booed at in comparison to ours.

* * * *

I brought things to tie you up with. I brought lace and see-throughs and frills and bows. I could have danced for you, set fires, made you live outside yourself. All these things and more I was prepared to do. Instead, you kept me naked, held my hand and walked in front of me, leading the way, washed my hair, kissed me first, told me stories, made me laugh like tinkling chimes, changed our plans, woke up before me, listened to me stretch in bed on a Sunday morning as you ate breakfast, roused me awake with your hard cock, and came inside me without asking first. After it all, after we (as you said) bleached each other white, I repacked all my frilly things. At home alone that evening, I laid them out on my bedroom floor one by one, unused, wondering what I am supposed to do now.

There's a certain way you look at me. It says: how dare you and you're beautiful and who are you and you scare me and I scare myself. It's searching, accusatory, desirous, and desirable. There is a hint of a smile on your face because this is delectable and unpredictable, the way you like it. It's a stare of equals on different pedestals. On different grounds. Never thought anyone could do what you do to other people, did you? But here I am, making you feel the way you've always made others feel. And making you realize that you, just by being yourself, made me deliriously happy, not as friends do, but as a man can only do for a woman, maybe once or twice in his lifetime, if he's lucky. Believe me, I didn't know what that meant either until now. Now you see why they love you so much: this is what you do for them. This is what you do to me.

* * * *

The squinting, cigarette-smoking, playmate lover I've had for 48 hours is turning away. I know; it's hard to say goodbye. Across the street from the hotel, we sit at a park bench in front of the church, you in the shade, I in the sun. You call it a chiaroscuro, for effect. The breeze helps us to breathe and lifts the weight of leaving. We talk of turtles and other things with protective shells. You complain about air travel, though you haven't flown in years. I try to think of something to say that will take exactly ten to fifteen minutes, but I can't. I can feel you pulling away, even before I've left. I understand though. You can never go back. No longer sinners, on this holy ground, we point to the third floor window, the bedroom we just left. What secrets were behind those stones. When the cab pulls away, I see you walking down the street. I think, if he looks back, he is mine. You looked back three times.